I teach at Lehigh University in eastern Pennsylvania. I work on British colonialism, modernism, postcolonial/global literature, and the digital humanities. Recent courses I have taught include Transatlantic Modernism, Asian Americans in Literature and Popular Culture, and "What Am I Doing Here? The Value of a Liberal Arts Education."

Seems like the discussion was exciting, but a little general. I'm glad it happened -- it makes a nice counterpoint to the all-white, mostly conservative blogger conference that Sharleen reported on a few weeks ago. In the discussion following that event, Cathy Seipp made it clear she didn't even take the question of race/ethnicity in the blogosphere seriously at all.

Still, notice that most of the discussion at the SAJA panel had to do with journalistic standards rather than ethnicity. I think it's going to be a little while before blogging becomes a significant issue within the broader South Asian diasporic community, or other ethnic US communities. The best known Indian blogger, Anil Dash, writes primarily about high-tech issues -- not so much about politics. A more political, and more broadly relevant, South Asian blogging community might develop in the next couple of years.

In the short run, however, I'm curious to see whether blogs that are based in India can have the effect on politics in India that they've had here in the U.S. The internet version of magazines like Outlook is very lively -- there are readers all around the globe. Also important to mention is the 2002 Tehelka bribery scandal (an expose of BJP officials engineered by a small website called Tehelka.com)... The internet is clearly bubbling with political energy and ideas now. Effectively, we are ripe for an Indian 'Instapundit'. (Jivha would be my nominee)

2 comments:

What might be nice is an Indian Crooked Timber. Or, for Crooked Timber to add Indian and diasporic Indians onto its roster. In fact, it would really be nice to have a worldwide group blog like that. There's some problems. (who speaks for who, etc.) But, it would be a great resource to see how people from different regions view the same issues. And, it would be nice to see what issues each person chose to post on.

Links, Selected Posts

Amardeep Singh, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh UniversityOn Twitter

I have begun work on a Digital archive I am calling "The Kiplings and India." I started last summer with a preliminary Wordpress site here: here. Working with a team of graduate research assistants, we have begun building the site proper in Scalar here.